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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I share the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, that, of the two amendments, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is to be preferred. The amendment is in his name and that of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, who is unfortunately not able to be in his place today. Several of the agencies listed in the amendments were created when former publicly owned industries were privatised. Because an element of monopoly was created, a regulator was needed to control monopoly abuse with a measure of price control. That was the case with gas, electricity, the railways and water. Of course, I entirely agree with what each of the three speakers so far has emphasised. The word ““independence”” is absolutely vital: independence from the industry and ministerial control, except the minimum necessary to establish one’s financial needs to the Treasury each year; but otherwise independent of the Government. It may be that, at some stage during the lifetime of one of these agencies, competition in the industry develops to such an extent that regulation is either no longer needed—that might sound rather extreme—or, at any rate, need not be so stringent. Therefore, the regulations imposed by or upon the agency may need to be changed. Both of the amendments are somewhat extreme, in that no detail of any kind could be altered except by statute when a regulatory reform order would surely be quite useful in dealing with the detail. The speeches of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, were not attacking detail but were concerned with independence and interfering with the principles and basic functions of the agencies. Ofcom is referred to. Some of us were here during the lengthy debates on the Communications Bill, which became the 2003 Act. It involved a massive merger of a number of separate agencies dealing with television and radio, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and so on. It is a huge piece of legislation and regulation. The legislation imposed rules on Ofcom. Of course, as the years have gone by, Ofcom itself has imposed regulation on those subject to its jurisdiction. It occurs to me that after two or three years, let alone 10 years or so, there may also be a need to deal with the detail of regulation in a way which does not necessarily have to involve full-scale primary legislation. Indeed, either Ofcom or the other regulators mentioned in these amendments may be desired by the agency itself in order to perform its tasks better. To seek an order under the Act would surely be sensible. We have not yet debated the various preconditions, safeguards, consultation and so on. I will not go into that, because we will be debating it at length in due course. I ask those of your Lordships who are inclined to favour a detailed amendment like either of the amendments before us to bear in mind that there are lots of safeguards with regard to any order made under the Bill. I favour Amendment No. 47B because it is more cautious and gentle than that of the noble Baroness. I could not help notice, having previously had a connection with the Office of Fair Trading, that it has been added in, whereas it was not in the original one. It reminds me of a point on which I can support the noble Lord. Not long ago, the Hampton report proposed that quite a fundamental part of the Office of Fair Trading’s work—consumer affairs and protection—should be hived off and handed, together with local authority trading standards matters, to a new agency called the consumer and trading standards agency. That idea was shot down by the Treasury, much to the relief of those presently in charge of the Office of Fair Trading, who have been able to retain their consumer affairs jurisdiction. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, was saying on this matter. If something substantial was proposed in terms of the remit given by statute to any of these agencies, then it ought not to be attempted by way of a regulatory reform order but by something else. I hope that the Minister will say a word or two about another part of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, dealing with freedom and independence from having the ““wishes”” of the Minister imposed on a regulator. Do the Government feel that that has any effect on something quite common in legislation, that agencies should be subject to a ministerial direction—the technical term—in certain circumstances? The noble Lord is probably trying to get at ministerial directions which inhibit the independence of these agencies. I feel a measure of support for him on that.